[btirthankar]

Scatman!

Just when I think you have finished posting your Travelogue, its coming on and on.

Your descriptions are quite groovy and have good humor.

The best thing is that, some of your experiences are quite similar to mine.

Thoroughly enjoyed.

--
BT

[MX6]

Originally Posted by smartcat

drive down to Doddabetta - the tallest peak in South India. The problem is - in every state in south India, there is a "tallest peak of South India"

Like the only Brahma temple of Pushkar?


But Guess Doddabetta is the only highest peak of south.

[KRRaj]

IIRC, Doddabetta is claimed to be the tallest peak in the Nilgiri Ranges and not South India as a whole.

[Gansan]

The tallest peak in South India seems to be in Kerala:

Anaimalai Hills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[SmartCat]

Just when I think you have finished posting your Travelogue

The travelogue will be completed when you add up the distance of all the trips done - from the start to end of this thread - and the number comes to around 100,000 kms.

But Guess Doddabetta is the only highest peak of south

Doddabetta is claimed to be the tallest peak in the Nilgiri Ranges and not South India as a whole

The tallest peak in South India seems to be in Kerala:

It depends on where you are.

- If you visit Mulliyanagiri (chickmagalur) in Karnataka, there will be a board pointing to it saying "Tallest Peak in South India".

- If you are in Kerala, Annamalai Hills is the tallest peak in South India.

- If you are in TN, there will be a signboard saying "Doddabetta - tallest peak in South India".

According to Wiki, Doddabetta is 8652 ft, Annamalai is 8842 ft while Muliyanagiri is 6300ft. It proves that people in Karnataka have the biggest (tallest rather) imagination.

[MX6]

Surprised! Anamudi is higher than doddabetta. Guess someone needs to go there with gps to see the altitude above msl!
So doddabetta is clearly another "tall" claim only for commercial purposes!

[SmartCat]

I need to quickly sign up as a Wikipedia editor and increase the height of Mulliyanagiri hills by atleast 2600 ft.

[MX6]

Originally Posted by smartcat

The travelogue will be completed when you add up the distance of all the trips done - from the start to end of this thread - and the number comes to around 100,000 kms.







It depends on where you are.

- If you visit Mulliyanagiri (chickmagalur) in Karnataka, there will be a board pointing to it saying "Tallest Peak in South India".

- If you are in Kerala, Annamalai Hills is the tallest peak in South India.

- If you are in TN, there will be a signboard saying "Doddabetta - tallest peak in South India".

According to Wiki, Doddabetta is 8652 ft, Annamalai is 8842 ft while Muliyanagiri is 6300ft. It proves that people in Karnataka have the biggest (tallest rather) imagination.

You've made Anamalai sound more like Annamalai (rajni starrer). In which case, it should be taller than Everest!

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by MX6

So doddabetta is clearly another "tall" claim only for commercial purposes!

It can certainly qualify as the second tallest, I think!

[sushrutha]

Lovely narration, + fantastic pics.
Loving everybit of this travelogue.
I like you humour too..
How real hahaha....

Originally Posted by smartcat

Pic 3: This picture reminds many software engineers of the salary hikes they got this year.

Originally Posted by smartcat

while Muliyanagiri is 6300ft.

6317ft to be precise.
Whatz the odo reading of your car ?
What mileage do you get ?
With so much of holidays, Whats you work profile ?

[SmartCat]

Sushrutha, the odo reading on the Optra is around 100,000 km. For some of our holidays, we took friends' Palio, Getz, Santro, Wagon R etc.

On highway runs, Optra gives 11 km/litre with the AC ON 90% of the time. But during our experimental runs to Mumbai & Goa, we got 16 km/litre - AC ON 20% of the time & changing gears below 2000rpm. Our max cruising speed was only 80 km/hr. Surprisingly, we didn't lose much time - because all our overtakes were well planned during that trip.

But driving like that becomes boring after sometime

With so much of holidays, Whats you work profile ?

I'm an entrepreneur - advertising, search marketing & stuff like that.

[SmartCat]

Ooty trip continued:

Pic 1: After lunch, the mist and the rain disappeared. So we go boating on Lake Placid.



Vid 1: Whenever I go river water rafting, I act like I'm rowing and then look on, as others huff and puff to get the boat moving. I used the same strategy in Ooty lake too. After we get to the middle of the lake, I stop pedaling - poor Pallavi then had to get us to the shore. Very chivalrous huh?

YouTube - Boating at Ooty Lake

Pic 2: After our boating, we go to Pykara Waterfalls (cascade) - which is on the longer NH route out of Ooty.



Pic 3: But there is no water at the "waterfalls". The scenary looks very dreary.



Pic 4: So we decide to sit & chat on those rocks in the middle of river, and take our own photographs instead.



Pic 5: We move on to Needle Hill view point, and hang around there to catch the sunset.



Pic 6: But we hear the distinct sound of our car alarm, from the top of the hill! Looks like all those heavy vehicles on the NH shook her up. We get down the hill and get to car quickly before the battery dies down.



Pic 7: We go back to our resort in Madumalai. Next day, before we leave for Bangalore, we decide to check out our large resort (called Blue Valley).



Pic 8 & 9: Our resort had a Botanical garden to rival the Ooty Botanical garden.





Pic 10: All offices need to replace chairs with hammocks to improve productivity.



Pic 11: We spot these big guys on the way back to Bangalore, in Bandipur sanctuary. The traffic stops behind us to take pics.



Pic 12: Forgot to introduce "Champa". Unlike the previous one, she is very colourful, talks a lot and likes to be touched!

[sushrutha]

smartcat,
Kindly excuse I have edited your pic2 without permission.
It's a nice pic, but needs some tuning ;-)

[SmartCat]

Rameshwaram - Kanyakumari - Kovalam Trip Pics :

Pic 1: We've always wanted to check out Kanyakumari - being the southern most tip on the Indian sub-continent. However, we thought a visit to KK would be more interesting if we could drive down along the sea coast of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Our route map ->

Bangalore - Madurai - Rameshwaram - Toothukudi - Tirunelveli - Kanyakumari - Kovalam Beach - Kozhikode - Ooty - Bangalore



Pic 2 & 3: The Team - Myself, Jagga, Binny and Jagga's Palio. We are supposed to leave Bangalore by 7:00 AM so that we could reach Rameshwaram the same day. But Binny comes to my place at 7:00 AM instead of 6, we go to Jagga's place at 8:00 AM instead of 7, and we leave Jagga's place at 9:00 AM instead of 7. By the time, we have breakfast, it is already 10:00 AM by the time we leave Bangalore. Our trip planning seems to be working well.





Pic 4: The road to Salem is not 2+2 laned. Jagga tries to take on the might of TN State Transport bus to make up for the lost time. However, one flash of his lights, and we are back in our lane.



Pic 5: Our Palio is equipped with a voice activated full automatic sun-blind (just like the new Superb). All we need to do is ask Binny (by voice command) to put up the sun-blind, and he will do it for you in seconds.



Pic 6: Between Salem & Madurai, we find this truck carrying what is probably a battle tank. On this 2 lane road with heavy traffic from opposite side, overtaking this tank carrying truck (moving at 40 kmph) took about 15 - 20 mins. We had a Eicher truck ahead of us, and had to wait till he managed to overtake the "Tank Truck".



Pic 7: One hour traffic jam about 20 km outside Madurai. A truck had overturned and we twiddled our thumbs in the car waiting for the traffic to clear. This bus driver makes a U-Turn and goes somewhere else. We decided to stay back in Madurai for the night.



Pic 8: Since we are already in Madurai, we decided to check out the Meenakshi Temple.



Pic 9: As we were walking into the temple, a woman asks us to handover our chappals/shoes to her. She took our chappals and hid it inside a large box. We thought the charge would be Rs. 2 per pair. But she gave a big plate with coconuts & flowers and asked for Rs. 50. Apparently, this is an old trick used by many near Temples. We laugh at our own stupidity, and instead of arguing with the woman in our broken Tamil, we take the plate and enter the Temple.



Pic 10: Inside the temple, we didn't know what to do with the plate/coconuts/flowers. So we gave it to this elephant!

[SmartCat]

smartcat,
Kindly excuse I have edited your pic2 without permission.
It's a nice pic, but needs some tuning ;-)

wow sushrutha - the edited one looks amazing.

Can anything be done about the dull looking river bed photo?